


Internal decadence

by AliaMael



Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Gen, I guess this is angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 21:44:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6346531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliaMael/pseuds/AliaMael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Producer is trapped in his own head as much as in his café.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Internal decadence

There are coffee stains on the wood counter. Coffee stains in the shape of brown circles, encrusted deep into the surface. In the shape of messy splashes, faint but here nevertheless. In the shape of fingertips, but these are the ones Sanae would do everything to forget. 

The café is empty. The Producer is alone, alone with memories, and sounds, and smells. Alone with the coffee stains that seem to be growing, multiplying, pervading the air and Sanae’s thought process. He doesn’t want to see them. He doesn’t want to remember. But the lines seem to blur under his eyes, under his hands tightened on the counter, preventing him from falling inside of himself.

The clock ticks. Again. And again. Never stopping. Never slowing. He can’t escape. The café is a jail. He’s his own jailer. And the clock ticks. Never forgetting. Never forgiving.

He’s drowning. Drowning in the smell of coffee, potent, powerful, even now with all the cups quietly ordered on the shelves, empty and clean. He served so many cups, to so many people. Players and Reapers and living and dead and even what he can only call a god. So many faces, and voices, in this little café. Sanae can remember every one of them. Some have forgotten him because they won and got their lives back. More have forgotten him because they got erased. Dead people are not the best at remembering.

Sanae wants to close his eyes, to breath, but he knows the images are waiting for him to do just that, lurking in the corners of his eyelids. He also knows that the smell of coffee is not the only scent wanting to claim his attention.

Maybe if he just keeps his eyes open and stares at the closed door the world will keep quiet.

But then there are the coffee stains. The ones left behind by Joshua, and Neku, and it’s too late because he can’t tell if it’s coffee on his fingers, or fusain, or paint, or blood. He don’t even remember killing anyone by himself but it felt like slowly cutting through Joshua’s skin to trace the patterns reviving Minamimoto. Treason. Transmuting fusain into blood. And these coffees served to the Proxy, given with a laugh, a joke, an advice, served with the hands that painted the tag. The one that called to the boy, the one that fascinated him enough for Joshua to kill him. Maybe paint is blood too. Maybe Sanae has been covering the town in his own blood for years now. How appropriate. Blood calling for more blood.

He feels dizzy.

He knows he’s drowning. He’d like to find something, anything really, to keep him afloat. But he doesn’t have anything. Anyone. Joshua is playing God. His Proxy is trying to get his life back together, slowly. No one has seen that something is wrong with Sanae. He’s always smiling. Always listening, quietly, and offering advices gently poured in coffee cups.

He doesn’t even know how he’s standing anymore. So many people, so many years… And Shibuya, forever changing, forever the same.

Sanae’s just a witness. He knew from the start that he couldn’t make any difference. It shouldn’t affect him so much. He doesn’t know what went wrong within him. The clock ticks, the counter is stained, his hands are covered in paint-blood-coffee and the scent is both sweet and metallic.

He’s stuck.

Through the windows, the shadows grow longer.

_You'll never know what internal decadence means._


End file.
